NEoN Digital Arts Archive

"Conversation Garden" promotional poster

CONVERSATION GARDEN

Shannon McRae & invite guests

Kathryn Rattray Gallery

The School of Cyborg was delighted to announce A conversation garden with Shannon McRae

This conversation with Shannon McRae started from her 1995 text "Coming Apart at the Seams: Sex, Text, and the Virtual Body". Starting from the results of her research the panel - in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere - dialogued with the audience diving deep into the themes of identity, cyborg-ness, and womxn-ness.

Her essay Coming Apart at the Seams; Sex, Text and the Virtual Body has been core to the School of Cyborg's project. How do you see your virtual body?

About the Artists

The School of Cyborg (SoC) program looks at women*, technology, and digital art in a post-gendered world, coding an identity that lies at the intersection between the individual and the collective. The SoC considers gender to be beyond the binary male / female definitions. Therefore, we understand the term women* to be inclusive of Trans and Intersex women and those who identify as non-binary and gender, ultimately promoting the freedom of identity and expression.

Shannon McRae
(she/her) is an American Professor of English and Director of Film Studies at the State University of New York at Fredonia. She teaches literature, film, mythology, religion, queer theory, and popular culture. She is interested in bodies, pleasures, the semi-permeability of the boundaries by which we customarily define self and other, technologies of ecstasy, and tracing the cultural stories that instruct humanity in their use. She is currently writing a book about non-mainstream religions, spiritual tourism, and pop-culture paganism in Jazz Age America.

This event happend both online and in-person. The in-person event at the Kathryn Ratray Gallery was for an invited audience due to access limitations.

Article by Shannon McRae, as part of the Conversation Garden with the School of Cyborg